you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [S] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (12 children)

I have been following the landwar in Ukraine very closely for years, russia has royally fucked the pooch, they have to negotiate lest their frontlines begin to truly collapse by next spring. They cannot apply artillery pressure to maintain their frontlines without unsustainably using their fighterbombers whereas Ukraine has multiple different survivable, affordable and effective land based artillery systems it is bringing to bear IN ADDITION to fighterbomber launched glidebombs.

Further Ukraine has demonstrated repeatedly that it has the ability to conduct armored combined arms assaults at the most intense parts of the frontline, on the otherhand russia has repeatedly and humiliating demonstrated it has no fucking clue how to.

The landwar is over for russia.

Not only that but russia's only theory of victory left is to commit acts of mass terrorism against Ukrainian civilians with saturation flying bomb/cruise missile attacks but the problem is as Ukraine's air defenses have become more and more effective the costs of russia's flying bombs have been forced to skyrocket to achieve the same impact (the media has been throwing russia a bone hard on this by only covering how the specifications of russian individual flying bombs keeps rising while pretending costs are magically not an issue for russia). Ukraine on the otherhand has dismantled russia's sophisticated air defenses letting them keep their flying bombs cheap on a per unit basis.

Jet powered flying bombs are also economically a dead end, they aren't useful for anything but murder, Ukraine has focused on much more economically viable kinds of drones and as a result Ukraine's economy is going to keep walking away from russia's as russia becomes a backwater middle of nowhere vaporwave series of brands for Chinese owned assets.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 12 child comments
  • [+] -10 points 1 week ago (11 children)

    Yes. It's been that way since the beginning. Ukraine has always been stronger. Russia has always been incompetent. Russia has been weeks away from imminent collapse for three years now. Russia expanding its targeting further and further West through ballistic missiles is just a sure sign that any day now they're going to collapse. Ukraine's losses of power and infrastructure are just signs that Russia is desperate.

    Wake me up when it happens

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • [–] [S] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

    Yes. It’s been that way since the beginning. Ukraine has always been stronger.

    You have it backwards, the narrative has since the beginning been that a russian victory is inevitable.

    Russia has always been incompetent.

    They really have, while Ukraine should be lauded for innovating so much with drones, russia created this existential vulnerability to their tanks decades ago and never addressed it to the point that russian tanks popping their turrets became a damn meme, they just hadn't fought an opponent smart and adaptable enough to properly punish them for their bullshitting.

    Further, russia has begun to blatantingly lie about where the frontlines are to coddle Putin's feelings, to the point of their own soldiers being sent to their deaths because they believed the frontline was somewhere else entirely until it hit them lethally in the face with no warninh. I don't think you can actually get any more incompetent than that, that is rock bottom for an "organized" military.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [+] -8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    the narrative has since the beginning been that a russian victory is inevitable.

    Nice memory hole you got there.

    Let's just pull the highlights:

    • Russia thought they could win in three days
    • Russia is using old Soviet tanks
    • Russian soldiers are being sent to the front lines without armor or weapons
    • Russia is forced to press people into service against their will because their losses are unsustainable
    • Russian losses are 5x or 10x Ukrainian losses
    • Russian military is rebelling
    • Russian people are anti-war and being oppressed and will rise up against Putin
    • Russian economy is totally collapsing
    • Russian currency is in free fall
    • Russia can barely hold any of the land it's gained
    • Russia can't even gain land
    • Ukraine has recovered in one month all Russian gains of the last 12 months

    And on and on and on. Constantly. The Ghost of Kiev myth. The amazing Abrams. The incredible special forces. The volunteers from abroad.

    If you genuinely think the narrative has been "Russian victory is inevitable" for three years, you are delusional

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    Russia thought they could win in three days

    They did seem pretty confident of a quick war—as many invaders have.

    ​

    Russia is using old Soviet tanks

    I guess many of them were destroyed.

    ​

    Russia is forced to press people into service against their will because their losses are unsustainable

    That's fair, though when Hitler invaded the USSR, the Soviets might have press-ganged a few conscripts.

    ​

    Russian military is rebelling

    "Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where the fuck is the ammunition?! Look at them, bitches"

    ​

    Russian people are anti-war and being oppressed and will rise up against Putin

    I didn't see that much about it in r/Ukraine.

    ​

    Russia can barely hold any of the land it’s gained

    They lost Kharkiv after losing that long line of tanks.

    ​

    If you genuinely think the narrative has been “Russian victory is inevitable” for three years, you are delusional

    Putin seems to think so.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

    The hilarious thing is that unironically most of those are true.

    The amazing Abrams.

    The Abrams shits on russian tanks, correct!

    https://defence24.com/armed-forces/land-forces/ukraines-armored-fleet-losses-and-current-inventory-analysis

    Thus, 57 vehicles remain in the inventory of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, or 69.5% of the initial stock. This allows for the arming of one standard tank battalion of 31 vehicles. In addition, there are 26 tanks, enough to equip one understrength battalion. These tanks have demonstrated high resistance to hits, as well as the highest level of crew safety and survivability.

    I must stress, these are very old versions of Abrams tanks, they are nothing like newer Abrams tanks even with Ukaraine's updates of them and yet... they still wipe the floor vs. any other main battle tank. You can also interestingly see how German tank design undermined itself by designing early leopards as somewhere between the abrams and russian tank design. Germany found out the hard way that russian style tank design is a dead end, russia has refused to learn this, the T-14 is just another M10 booker, light armor fascist fantasy that misunderstands the role of a main battle tank fundamentally.

    If you genuinely think the narrative has been “Russian victory is inevitable” for three years, you are delusional

    I am constantly reading english language news, there is no debate what narratives even allies of Ukraine accepted at the start of the war, Ukraine was treated as a noble but lost cause until Ukraine forced their allies into realizing Ukraine wasn't going to lose.

    You are so bad at this narrative twisting, Ukraine never claimed it would be a "three day operation" to kick russia out, russia claimed they could take Ukraine in three days or so. Is this a thing leaders launching wars frequently do? Of course, but it is also true russia really never recovered any momentum after the initial three day operation failed and cost russia its decisive rotary wing capability....

    Please try harder at your disinformation, it is boring how obvious it is that your feelings are hurt about this.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    You can't genuinely believe Russia is in full control of the situation. They snatched some land. Kidnapped a bunch of children. Killed a bunch of civilians. But that's about it.

    Nobody in that region came to the conclusion that they should kowtow to Putin now. That dude is also stuck in a situation where he fears losing his head if his people find him showing weakness.

    Innocent people are paying the ultimate price for geopolitical posturing. Doesn't matter what you have to say about NATO, Nuland, or their broken promises. What does Russia wish to accomplish because clearly they're not winning and stealing their entire country. Do you want to see the suffering to end? If so, how?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [+] -8 points 1 week ago

    Why would I believe any side is in full control of a multi-sided military conflict? That's not what I said. I said Russia appears to be setting the pace in negotiations, and that this implies some aspect of availability of room to maneuver, whereas someone who was in danger of collapsing imminently wouldn't have the luxury of that kind of time.

    I don't need to talk about any of the other topics you mentioned. The article is talking about Trump being a Russian asset despite Trump presiding over and directing some of the harshest anti-Russian sanctions and my assessment of why he's offering to let up some of that pressure, none of which would return Russia to pre-Trump sanctions, is because the US is being forced to by the conditions of the situation. We all know how the US behaves when it is not being forced - it strangles it's targets to death. It's doing it with Cuba as we speak. The fact that Trump applied maximal pressure and is now offering to ease some of the pressure is a clear negotiating tactic, and given the man's clear slide into dementia, he is most likely not the one driving the negotiation strategy and the strategy is being produced by multiple US factions arriving at their best compromise position given the facts on the ground.

    Yes, I want the bloodshed to end. All wars end in negotiated peace. So negotiated peace is how it will end. The question is how soon, and the answer to that question is a question between the USA and Russia. Ukraine is a proxy of the USA, and just like all other US proxies in history, the USA decides whether the proxy keeps fighting or not.

    I want the war to end immediately with no more loss of life. Most of the "Trump is a Russian stooge" camp want the war to end after Ukraine has fought more and lost more.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (4 children)

    Russia expanding its targeting further and further West through ballistic missiles is just a sure sign that any day now they’re going to collapse.

    How much Ukrainian territory have they conquered? 5%? 2%?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] -3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    I think it's pretty clear that targeting further West with ballistics is entirely orthogonal to territory gains.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    orthogonal

    This is a (mostly) new word for me.

    wt:orthogonal

    Adjective

    orthogonal (not comparable)

    (geometry) .1. Of two objects, at right angles; perpendicular to each other.

    A chord and the radius that bisects it are orthogonal.

    (mathematics) .2. Of a pair of vectors: having a zero inner product; perpendicular.

    .1. The normal vector and tangent vector at a given point are orthogonal.

    .2. Of a square matrix: such that its transpose is equal to its inverse.

    .3. Of a linear transformation: preserving its angles.

    .4. Of grid graphs, board games and polyominoes: vertical or horizontal but not diagonal.

    .5. Of a pair of elements in an ortholattice: each less than or equal to the orthocomplement of the other.

    .3. (statistics) Statistically independent, with reference to variates.

    .4. (software engineering) Of two or more aspects of a problem, able to be treated separately; of a design, exhibiting consistency and composability.

    The content of the message should be orthogonal to the means of its delivery.

    .5. Of two or more problems or subjects, independent of or irrelevant to each other.

    ​

    I still don't get what you're saying.

    Are you saying that if they made a straight line to Kyiv, Lviv, or Warsaw, that gains in area is "independent of or irrelevant"?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] -2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    I said Russia has been hitting targets further and further West via ballistic missile. You asked me how much territory they gained. I said that these two things (long range strikes and territorial capture) are unrelated.

    Russia has clearly been focused on the border between Russia and Ukraine - multi-layered defense, political ambiguity through referenda, international humanitarian justification, etc. Russian territorial gains and losses are almost entirely confined to the Donbas region.

    But also, Ukraine has industrial capabilities in the West that they are using to fight the war. Russia doesn't need to gain territory to hit those targets with ballistics. It's a different conversation.

    Where they might be related is where those capabilities that Russia is targeting are capabilities that Ukraine is using on the front lines in the Donbas. But the effectiveness of launching a missile barrage at Kiev is not measured in territory gains or losses in the Donbas.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    I said Russia has been hitting targets further and further West via ballistic missile. You asked me how much territory they gained. I said that these two things (long range strikes and territorial capture) are unrelated.

    Okay;

    but they been hitting Kyiv for years, it's just that their drones/missiles are now faster, and like the Shaheds, will take Ukrainians awhile before they again come up with better ways to counter them.

    I know little of what's going on in Ukraine, be it rural or urban, but I figure that the population has been taking measures to better cope with Putin attacking civilian targets and civilians. I'm sure the per capita ownership of batteries (both lithium, lead-acid, and others), PVCs, wood stoves, maybe a few portable steam engines and small wind turbines—might as well make use of the winter gales—water storage, increased stores of necessities, potassium iodide (because Russia might use tactical nukes and we don't want a repeat of Hiroshima or Nagasaki were there were presumably fewer sandbags, no protection for thyroids, white shadows, etc), have increased.

    ​

    Russia has clearly been focused on the border between Russia and Ukraine - multi-layered defense, political ambiguity through referenda, international humanitarian justification, etc. Russian territorial gains and losses are almost entirely confined to the Donbas region.

    I agree that their occupation of Crimea and Donbas have been fortified, and probably like Ulster/Northern Ireland, will remain separated for years if not decades (no reason for diplomatic concessions, though).

    ​

    But also, Ukraine has industrial capabilities in the West that they are using to fight the war. Russia doesn’t need to gain territory to hit those targets with ballistics. It’s a different conversation.

    Russia tried to invade much, if not most (maybe all) of Ukraine in 2022. They failed, but in for a penny and all of that.

    It seems that Putin has hunkered down for the long term. Maintain control of Crimea and Donbas, maybe expand a little, and try to fight a war of attrition with air strikes minus traditional air superiority. Where the US failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Vietnam, with actual airplanes as well as with missiles, rockets, and shells, so will Russia fail even more with at least most of Ukraine.

    ​

    Where they might be related is where those capabilities that Russia is targeting are capabilities that Ukraine is using on the front lines in the Donbas. But the effectiveness of launching a missile barrage at Kiev is not measured in territory gains or losses in the Donbas.

    Again, it looks like a war of attrition: attempt to weaken the tax/industrial base of Ukraine to defend itself, be it in Donbas or Kyiv, mixed with psychology, i.e. try to weary Ukrainians—somewhat like Israel against Gaza, though Israel's attacks are far more intense and brutal, and their case, probably (but not certainly) will be more successful.

  • source
  • parent